Countries used to test drugs often don't see the approved medicines, study finds

Numerous medicines are not accessible in many of the countries where they were tested before approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, raising concerns about whether pharmaceutical companies are adhering to ethical standards, a new study finds.

The researchers reviewed 172 medicines that were approved by the agency and tested between 2015 and 2018 in 89 countries. Of the 144 drugs that were tested outside the U.S., only 34 — or 24% — were physically accessible in those countries, according to the analysis published in JAMA Internal Medicine.

And among the 77 countries that publicly report formal marketing authorizations, which means that a pharmaceutical company is authorized to make its medicine available for distribution, patients in only 11 — or 14% — of those countries had